


Skidding On Flat

by HVK



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Age Difference, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Older Woman/Younger Man, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-06 23:29:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1876599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HVK/pseuds/HVK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Breezy and still dealing with his grief, anger issues and emotional exhaustion, Finn is at Marceline's house. She knows how that sort of thing feels. What its like to lose all control, and lose yourself in sensation, and then lose yourself in that hollowness. She knows, and she knows how to be there for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skidding On Flat

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Adventure Time.

The hot water boils, steams; it sings out through the kettle, and Marceline is already there, taking it off the heat and doing mysterious delicious-making things that Finn doesn't really notice because he's too busy staring at his hand.

He flexes it; his fingers bend with a slowness that doesn't feel right. It is still a match for his other arm, might be a match for the arm he lost. He looks pensive as he stretches it, and the light catches his skin oddly; it doesn't look like real skin, not exactly, but almost plastic, like something extracted from the inside of a plant.

He's frowning, but he doesn't look especially upset. There's a flat, dissonant quality to his expressions that bothers her. He looks like he's not feeling  _anything_. That's not a good sign.

Marceline swoops in, looms over him. Maybe he's used to woman doing that, physically and mentally and socially. He looks up, a few strands of hair over his eyes. That disturbing flatness flickers for a second, pushed by a ghost of a smile.

Marceline doesn't need to breath. She sucks in a breath anyway, because Finn is  _beautiful._

She smiles downs at him, and away from the outside where she keeps up a persona of tough neutrality indifferent to all morality, her guise fades a bit. Her smile is unsteady, shy, and a little nervous. She's always nervous. She's been around long enough to see the patterns, see how people die or transform into things or turn against her or in some other way leave her. Knowing these things is hard and she's always on one edge or another, aware of the little tells of someone leaving and fear creeping in bits and bumps when she sees a sign.

Now, in retrospect, she thinks that Finn has been on an edge too and she hadn't even noticed.

In her hands is a plate, and she lowers it. From it Finn takes a steaming cup of hot chocolate and delicately sips it, holding on more strongly with the arm that isn't new; its not his dominant hand, but he had adapted (almost) to losing one arm and adapting back is not so easy when part of his head still thinks he only has one hand to work with.

She makes her hot chocolate sweet; the flavor invigorates him. His nose wrinkles though, and eventually he says his first words for a long while: "You use honey in it?"

"Yeah. Is that, is that taste bad to you?"

"No, no! It's just..." Finn stares at the cup. "...Nothin'. Doesn't matter." For a second, he looks perilously close to saying that  _nothing_ matters. He doesn't say it. Maybe just because she's there, with him, for him. It's a small victory for her, and she takes it.

Marceline floats next to him, nudging at him. "Wanna talk about it?"

"...No..."

"Anything you  _want_ to talk about??"

He just shakes his head; he looks lost, and miserable, and totally adrift.

Too much has happened, too soon, and maybe the only thing he can do to get some kind of control, any kind, is planting himself in sensation. IT feels good, but empty.

Marceline understands the feeling.

She puts an arm around his shoulder, she squeezes him. "It's okay, buddy."


End file.
